Arkansas’ defense held an opponent out of the end zone for the first time under third-year defensive coordinator Willy Robinson on Saturday in the Razorbacks’ 44-3 win over Tennessee Tech.
In his first meeting with the media since watching film of the season-opener, Robinson said he was pleased with his unit’s effort.
“It was a great game [...]

Among the new things we’ll be doing here in the Slophouse is expanding our relationship with our sister publication Hawgs Illustrated.
One of the ways we’ll do that is to host their weekly podcast, HI Radio. This week Clay Henry and I sit down to talk about Arkansas’ season-opening win over Tennessee Tech and preview [...]

Former Arkansas receiver Marquel Wade has enrolled at Milford Academy, a prep school in New York, according to the program’s roster.
Wade (5-foot-11, 180 pounds) enrolled at Arkansas and began going through preseason drills, but abruptly returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., on Aug. 19. When asked about the matter, Razorback coach Bobby Petrino said, [...]

We mentioned in an earlier thread how rain was a good thing for the Arkansas football program this week, but as is often the case it has an adverse effect on baseball.
Dave Van Horn’s club was slated to begin fall drills Tuesday but because of the rain has had to postpone that start date until [...]

Arkansas spent Tuesday practicing in a steady Ozark Mountain rain, and if the forecast is any indication, the Hogs could end up doing the same for the rest of the week.
Speaking on the Southeastern Conference coaches’ teleconference Wednesday, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said he liked the way his team practiced in the wet weather, especially [...]

A 44-3 opening-season win might be acceptable to fans, but it was little surprise Arkansas coaches found plenty to be displeased with after watching film of the Hogs’ game with Tennessee Tech.
Arkansas offensive coordinator Garrick McGee said the Razorbacks spent a rainy Tuesday practice cleaning up fine details.
“I told them to the outside eye and [...]

Ah, September 2008. As most of the nation was wrapped up in the most interesting presidential election in decades, the attention of Razorback fans was occupied by a more important matter: the extremely shaky state of the Arkansas football team.

Sitting here in the midst of the high-flying Ryan Mallett Era, it’s almost hard to remember, but the Hogs were bad at the beginning of that season. Like, really bad. So bad that they had to mount furious 4th quarter comebacks to defeat  Western Illinois (a Division I-AA team) and Louisiana-Monroe in consecutive weeks, earning them the dubious distinction of being the worst 2-0 team in history. Seems like way more than two years ago, doesn’t it?

So, here we sit today, one game into a hugely anticipated season and ready to face the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks again. Although no one expects anything close to a repeat of that 2008 battle (knock on wood), it’s worth taking a few minutes to reflect back on that last game and appreciate just how far we’ve come.

* Check out the official recap and box score. You may feel like sending a belated thank you note to the likes of Michael Smith and Casey Dick.

* Here’s our immediate post-game reaction (note the gloomy prediction of not winning again for the rest of the season…it seemed extremely possible at the time) followed by KevinHog’s much more substantive eyewitness report.

* The Razorbloggers rounded up reactions from the media…lots of good links here.

* Lastly, enjoy the very slim highlights video of the game.

Once you’ve checked out those links be sure to take a deep breath and cleanse those memories from your system..it’s a very different season now. WPS!

Fall around these parts means three things: football season, a new crop of marginally talented unpaid interns and the SEC Power Poll. Here are our insightful thoughts on the state of the conference after the first weekend of games (our preseason rankings are in parentheses):

1. (1) Alabama - Rolling.

2. (3) Georgia - A nice start to the season…but where’s A.J. Green?

3. (2) Florida - Possibly should be lower based on their anemic first game, but moving them below the Hogs so soon would run the risk of jinxing too many things.

4. (4) Arkansas - Season starts on September 18.

5. (7) South Carolina - Very solid opening week just makes the inevitable late season collapse more painful.

6. (5) Auburn - Gus knows offense, but they gave up waaaay too many points against Arkansas State.

7. (7) LSU  - Les Miles just makes everything more fun.

8. (8) Mississippi State - Boldly staking their claim as the best team in Mississippi.

9. (9) Kentucky - We’ll repeat last week’s hilarious joke: only a few more weeks until basketball season!

10. (10) Tennessee - This weekend’s game against Oregon could get ugly.

11. (12) Vanderbilt - Advanced by virtue of losing to a Division 1 team.

12. (9) Ole Miss - The good news is that they don’t have to play any more FCS teams this year.

A 44-3 opening-season win might be acceptable to fans, but it was little surprise Arkansas coaches found plenty to be displeased with after watching film of the Hogs’ game with Tennessee Tech.
Arkansas offensive coordinator Garrick McGee said the Razorbacks spent a rainy Tuesday practice cleaning up fine details.
“I told them to the outside eye and [...]

Arkansas is practicing in the rain at Reynolds Razorback Stadium this afternoon. That could come in handy as forecasts call for a chance of showers Saturday night when the No. 14 Razorbacks host Louisiana-Monroe at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium.
Zach Stadther was back at practice today after not dressing out in Saturday’s game against Tennessee [...]

Game 1 of the 2010 season is now solidly in the rearview mirror, but in the interest of full closure (or perhaps just beating a dead horse), here are a few additional thoughts before we move on to the tussle with Louisiana-Monroe:
* Overall, it felt like a solid enough beatdown, but one that also revealed areas for improvement (or at least crisper execution). That’s ok, though…we don’t want to peak too soon.* On that note, I like that we have another game to work out the kinks before heading to Georgia.* Mark my words: Joe Adams is going to surprise a lot of people this year. Not among Hog fans, of course, because we already know how awesome he is, but the broader group of college football followers and media who may have overlooked him because he missed such a big chunk of last season will soon be jumping on the bandwagon.* Nice to see Alex Tejada booming those kickoffs into the end zone, huh?* Even considering the level of competition, the defense deserves props for holding he Golden Eagles to three points and generally dominating after allowing that quick early field goal. Will be interesting to see how they do against a team with a functioning passing game.* Bobby Petrino is tough: Dennis Johnson averages 20 yards per carry, including a 49-yard run and a TD, and still winds up in the doghouse.* For additional Expats-style wit and wisdom on the game, be sure to listen to the podcast.* Looking elsewhere around the Hog Blogosphere, the Razorbloggers have their list of good, bad and ugly moments, and the Hog Database has video highlights (which are better than the one on ESPN.com, for sure).
And last but not least, a new feature here at Arkansas Expats: an animated drive chart! Kind of a fun way to relive the progress of the game…click below to watch (we recommend the full screen version, btw):
FULL SCREEN VERSION

Arkansas jumped three spots this week to No. 14 in the Associated Press poll and four spots to the No. 15 in the USA Today/Coaches’ Poll, both released Tuesday.
The Razorbacks (1-0) beat Tennessee Tech 44-3 on Saturday. It is their highest ranking in either poll since being ranked No. 12 in the final regular season [...]

Arkansas cornerback Seth Arumbrust will miss the remainder of the 2010 season with what the University of Arkansas says is a left knee injury suffered Saturday against Tennessee Tech.
Armbrust, a fifth-year senior, was seldom used on defense but was a major contributor on the Razorbacks’ special teams unit. Last season he blocked a punt against [...]

 You have no doubt been waiting with baited breath for the next edition of our Hog Call podcast. Well, rejoice, rejoice  - your wait is finally over.

In this episode – one that is no doubt destined for a place in broadcasting history alongside Edward R. Murrow’s World War II radio reports from London and the Beatles’ appearance on Ed Sullivan’s TV show – John and I discuss the Tennessee Tech game and Jack Crowe’s stunning defeat of HDN and Ole Miss. I also repeatedly utter the phrase “I have to say.”

You can listen to the episode by hitting the play button on the widget below. You can also download the episode by visiting our show’s home page.

And if you’re among the millions someone who wants to subscribe to the podcast and automatically receive future episodes, you can do so by clicking on the orange RSS icon in the widget below. To subscribe through iTunes, just click on the purple iTunes icon. (The eagle-eyed among you may notice that we are now producing the podcasts via a different service, so if by chance you subscribed after our test run a few weeks back, you’ll need to resubscribe.)

If you have any problems with the audio quality, please let us know.

It’s easy to get caught up in the glitz and glamour of Bobby Petrino’s offense, but Monday the Arkansas defense was given its due for a near flawless performance against Tennessee Tech.
Yes, there was the one long pass play that gave the Golden Eagles the ball at the Arkansas 1 in the first quarter, but [...]

I was asked to write a farewell last week.
After much thought of where I should start, I figured I’d go back to the beginning.
Sports weren’t always a part of my life. After all, as a child in elementary school, my nerdiness was apparent. While others were strapping on football pads for the first time in [...]

This is an actual tweet, folks. Kind of says it all, huh?

Like many of you, I am sure, I had a big schadenfreude grin on my face after watching the special ESPN coverage of Jacksonsville State and Jack Crowe (how many of you knew he was still coaching?) beating Houston Nutt and the Rebels in double overtime. You could have called it the  Fired Razorback Coach Bowl if you wanted to. All the connections and ironies could easily make you think that there is some football scriptwriter behind the paste board mask of television games writing out a script whereupon he/she/it decided yesterday that the Rebels should be the next victim of falling to a non-division one school, and that just a few days after winning the NCAA Masoli appeal that was to make a not so great season into one better than expected.

And now the Great Scriptwriter has made Houston Nutt the coach behind two of Ole Miss’s worse losses, the seven overtime game and now this. But in reality, there is no scriptwriter. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said that a man’s character is his fate. And Houston Nutt’s character as a football coach is one of a roller-coaster of emotional highs and then lows. From beating LSU last year (high) to losing to Miss. State (low) to winning an ugly Cotton Bowl (high) to losing to Jacksonsville State (very low). This as Arkansas fans know is pretty much what you get with Nutt.

With that in mind, I am feeling even more confident about my prediction that Ole Miss will beat Bama in Tuscaloosa this year because wouldn’t that be a very Houston Nutt type of thing to do after losing to Jacksonville State? So before Ole Miss chooses Dr. Heimlich as their on field mascot, haha, they should just watch things unfold. Nutt will get them on a high again by beating someone they shouldn’t (oh, Great Scriptwriter, please don’t let it be us!) and then get ready for all the “what heart!” and “didn’t let go of the rope” statements, that is until the next head scratching loss. Up and down, up and down, but always going in a circle.

I don’t think they are flying banners yet over Oxford, but here is what you’ll find over at Red Cup Rebellion right now: “Fire Houston Nutt. Hell yes. This is a knee jerk reaction. And hell yes, I’m drunk. I don’t care. Fire Nutt. Fire Tyrone Nix. Strip all of our defenders of their scholarships. If they’re not willing to at least pretend like they’re in the SEC, then fuck’em. Fuck’em hard.” 

Like many of you, I am sure, I had a big schadenfreude grin on my face after watching the special ESPN coverage of Jacksonsville State and Jack Crowe (how many of you knew he was still coaching?) beating Houston Nutt and the Rebels in double overtime. You could have called it the  Fired Razorback Coach Bowl if you wanted to. All the connections and ironies could easily make you think that there is some football scriptwriter behind the paste board mask of television games writing out a script whereupon he/she/it decided yesterday that the Rebels should be the next victim of falling to a non-division one school, and that just a few days after winning the NCAA Masoli appeal that was to make a not so great season into one better than expected. And now the Great Scriptwriter has made Houston Nutt the coach behind two of Ole Miss’s worse losses, the seven overtime game and now this. But in reality, there is no scriptwriter. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said that a man’s character is his fate. And Houston Nutt’s character as a football coach is one of a roller-coaster of emotional highs and then lows. From beating LSU last year (high) to losing to Miss. State (low) to winning an ugly Cotton Bowl (high) to losing to Jacksonsville State (very low). This as Arkansas fans know is pretty much what you get with Nutt. With that in mind, I am feeling even more confident about my prediction that Ole Miss will beat Bama in Tuscaloosa this year because wouldn’t that be a very Houston Nutt type of thing to do after losing to Jacksonville State? So before Ole Miss chooses Dr. Heimlich as their on field mascot, haha, they should just watch things unfold. Nutt will get them on a high again by beating someone they shouldn’t (oh, Great Scriptwriter, please don’t let it be us!) and then get ready for all the “what heart!” and “didn’t let go of the rope” statements, that is until the next head scratching loss. Up and down, up and down, but always going in a circle.

I don’t think they are flying banners yet over Oxford, but here is what you’ll find over at Red Cup Rebellion right now: “Fire Houston Nutt. Hell yes. This is a knee jerk reaction. And hell yes, I’m drunk. I don’t care. Fire Nutt. Fire Tyrone Nix. Strip all of our defenders of their scholarships. If they’re not willing to at least pretend like they’re in the SEC, then fuck’em. Fuck’em hard.” 

No Respect

Ryan Mallett will make his fair share of highlight-reel plays this season.
His cannon of an arm will produce touchdown tosses and a few jaw-dropping throws on a rope that many quarterbacks in the nation can’t provide.
But what about his presence in the pocket when the routes fail or the protection collapses? Suddenly, he’s facing a [...]

I’ve got a couple of videos to share this morning here in the Slophouse.
First up is the WholeHogCast, which features the debut of online sports editor Matt Jones. We discuss the Hogs’ 44-3 win over Tennessee Tech to open the season and much more.
Also included is Bobby Petrino’s complete press conference after the game.
Enjoy the [...]

Arkansas didn’t look very sharp at times, even if Ryan Mallett did look the part of a Heisman contender in the 44-3 victory over Tennessee Tech.
Penalties, miscues, fumbles and, yes, a few bad decisions by Mallett hurt Arkansas early in the first half. Still, it was Mallett who stole the show by the end of [...]

The first game of the season is in the books for the Hogs and, as expected, it wasn’t much of a test for the boys in red. Although it’s hard to complain much about a 41 point blowout that saw Ryan Mallett go 21-24 for 301 yards and 3 TDs, but it was beset with plenty of first game sloppiness for sure…penalties, missed tackles, turnovers, etc. We’re going to need crisper execution in SEC play for sure (ok, maybe not against Ole Miss).

In the end, though, all that matters is that the Hogs won, nobody was injured and the season is finally underway. And on that note, I’ll turn the floor over to you. What do you think about the game?

After an offseason that lasted approximately 50 months, it’s football time at last!

Keeping with our usual tradition, this post is the place to weigh in with your commentary and observations throughout the game. It’s not on TV, even as pay-per-view, where I live (shockingly, Arkansas-Tennessee Tech wasn’t considered a major draw in the SF Bay Area) so I’ll be checking in here and reading what you have to say to see what’s going on.

Also, enjoy this inspirational season-starting video that was forwarded to us by our own KevinHog.

WPS!

Game Blog: Tennessee Tech vs. Arkansas

The news is breaking this afternoon that the NCAA has reversed itself and granted Masoli his wish to play for Ole Miss this fall. It seems the first NCAA ruling was based more on the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter. I think we’ll see another Houston Nutt rule from the NCAA in the near future where it will be more clearly stated that this waiver can’t be used by an athlete who has been kicked off a team. Masoli was the rare case of a quick to graduate student who at the same time screwed up enough to get kicked off his own team. Personally, I feel that this whole episode underscores the lie that in too many instances is the phrase ”student athlete” when it comes to college football. I think “athlete, maybe sometimes a student,” would be more accurate. I give Masoli credited for graduating at Oregon, but he surely didn’t arrive in Oxford for a future in Parks and Recreation! And that is something the NCAA got right the first time. Here’s a little Masoli poll for you to play around with.

In anticipation of tomorrow night’s battle against mighty Tennessee Tech, we asked Rasputin, our staff soothsayer, to offer his prediction for the game. A Russian immigrant who claims to be hundreds of years old, Rasputin – who once had a torrid love affair with Brigitte Bardot – has been a rabid Razorbacks football fan since the program’s debut in 1894.

Admittedly, there’s not much suspense about this forecast, as just yesterday we revealed Raz’s picks for the entire 2010 season. But he will still appear on the blog each Friday to offer his prediction for the next day’s game, which may differ from his pre-season prognostication due to any number of factors. Rasputin offered the thoughts below after spending all of last night communing with nature in the fields adjacent to our corporate headquarters.

“The cold-hearted orb that rules the late-summer night,
tells me in a whisper of the Hogs’ season-opening plight,
it says, ‘Their effort will be spirited and their touchdowns aplenty,
their opponent will be overmatched and won’t break 20!’
my heart then felt light and my spirit flooded with mirth,
tears of joy filled my eyes as I thought of the new season’s birth,
but a sobering thought soon did appear,
will this game indicate how the hogs shall fare this year?
no, for now that question unresolved it shall be,
the answer awaits in athens in week number three.”

Rasputin then wrote “Arkansas 49, Tennessee Tech 10″ on a slip of paper, walked out of our offices’ front door without saying another word and hasn’t been seen since. Truly inscrutable, that man.

Well, we’ve heard from Rasputin. What is your prediction for tomorrow night’s game?

The football season is upon us and you just knew the “You Pick ‘Em” would be back for another go-around here in the Slophouse.
First up is Tennessee Tech, a FCS school that is as heavy an underdog as they come. The Golden Eagles plan to use two quarterbacks and line up in multiple formations. The [...]

I’ve been saving some footage from Arkansas’ media day to unload on a day such as this. Below you will find a couple of one-on-one videos (the Ryan Mallett one you’ve probably already seen) and a short video of Arkansas players with an open mic and opportunity to deliver a message to fans.
As you’ll soon [...]

Adventures in Apostasy: Week Three

Welcome to the 2010 football season! As a public service to you, the Hog fan, we’ll once again be providing a handy pre-game cheat sheet detailing why you should hate each one of the Razorbacks’ opponents this fall. Some weeks will be easier than others…

1. The Texas Connection. Tennessee Tech Watson Brown just happens to be the older brother of Texas coach Mack Brown. They look a bit alike (see above), so as the Hogs are pounding the Golden Eagles tomorrow you can squint your eyes a bit and pretend that it’s Mack and the Longhorns on the other sideline.

2. There’s Almost No Upside. TTU is a Division I-AA team, so beating them doesn’t exactly win the Razorbacks a lot of respect from observers or points in the vaunted BCS computers. Best case scenario is that we shake off the offseason rust, roll to an easy win and walk off the field with no injuries. Worst case scenario is, well, this (*shudder*).

3. Their Colors Are Vaguely Reminiscent of LSU’s. This one requires some imagination, but perhaps the “squint your eyes and pretend” idea from point #1 applies here as well.

4. Their Facebook Page Has 10 Fans. We realize that’s not much of an inspiration for frothing at the mouth hatred…maybe this week’s installment should have been called “Reasons to Pity”? (h/t @cbahn)

Tennessee Tech will be in town today, which has more of a feel of Payday Eve than a big game for the Golden Eagles.
But Tech, with Coach Watson Brown, could prove to be a test at times for Arkansas’ defense. The multiple looks, perhaps some wishbone and play-action out of the shotgun formation, could give [...]

Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino has fielded plenty of questions in the 42 days since SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala., in July.
Whether it’s from the local or national media, or the bevvy of questions from Arkansas play-by-play man Chuck Barrett at booster clubs and radio/television appearances, the coach is ready to start his third season [...]

Not a moment too soon, here is our staff soothsayer Rasputin’s forecast for the 2010 Razorback football season. A Russian immigrant who claims to be hundreds of years old and who sleeps every night in a chamber of pure oxygen, Rasputin (that’s him in the picture above) has been a rabid Razorbacks football fan since the program’s debut in 1894 under head coach John C. Futrall.

The forecast below was produced after months of fasting, meditating, drinking weapons-grade vodka, consuming peyote and examining animal entrails in disturbingly detailed fashion. We were going to have ole Raz write up his predictions but unfortunately, he overdid the vodka and peyote consumption. Fortunately, one of our staff interns is an expert at deciphering and translating his intoxicated ramblings. After the jump are Rasputin’s predictions as translated by that poor intern:

Tennessee Tech (9/4): After a long offseason, the Hogs come out of the gate ready to play. The defense is particularly excited to not be facing the Arkansas offense and responds with a big game. Arkansas, 49-10.

Louisiana-Monroe (9/11): Another successful tuneup for the upcoming conference battles. The Razorbacks win comfortably without dipping too deep into Petrino’s bag of tricks. Arkansas, 41-14.

@Georgia (9/18): All our offseason worries come to fruition as a few key defensive lapses and special teams breakdowns prove too much to overcome on the road. Georgia, 42-34.

Alabama (9/25): The loss to the Dawgs takes a little luster off the hype for this game, but the final result is just as sweet. In an epic battle, Mallett & Co rise to the occasion and deal the Tide their first regular season loss since 2007. Arkansas, 28-27.

@Texas A&M (10/9): The game is closer than last year’s rout, but the Hogs still manage to give the Aggies an unpleasant taste of their future in the SEC. Arkansas, 38-28

@Auburn (10/16): The third time’s the charm for Gus Malzahn, as he finally exacts revenge on the Razorbacks in a shootout on the Plains. Auburn, 45-38.

Ole Miss (10/23): Some typically Nutty hi-jinks cause multiple heart attacks across the Natural State as the Rebels lead for much of the game, but the Hogs rally late in the 4th quarter to pull out the much-needed victory. Arkansas, 27-24.

Vanderbilt (10/30): Nerds! Nerds! Nerds! Arkansas, 45-14.

@South Carolina (11/6): The Law of Averages demands that the Gamecocks will eventually make it through November without collapsing. Unfortunately for the Hogs, this is that year, as they play sloppy and once again go down on the road. South Carolina, 30-20.

UTEP (11/13): The Razorbacks take out their frustration from the previous week’s debacle and bury the Miners. Arkansas, 52-17.

@Mississippi State (11/20): It’s an ugly game, but at this point no one is complaining about a conference road win. Arkansas, 24-22.

LSU (11/27): The Hogs reclaim the Boot and manage to deal Les “Ar-KANsas” Miles a tough loss in what turns out to be his final regular season game at LSU. Arkansas, 34-21.

Add it all up, and Rasputin is predicting a 9-3 regular-season record. His crystal ball got a little cloudy when it came time to foresee exactly which bowl game the Hogs will appear in, but Rasputin is predicting that the Razorbacks will notch their second consecutive post-season victory. And starting tomorrow, Rasputin will appear on the blog each Friday to offer his prediction for that weekend’s game, which may change due to injuries and/or other circumstances.

So, what are your thoughts on Rasputin’s prognostications?

Rating the Frosh

It can be hard not to overlook an opponent from time to time, especially one that was ranked near the bottom of several offensive categories in the Football Championship Subdivision last season.
But Tennessee Tech, which ranked 94th offensively last season, has the full attention of the Razorbacks and, specifically, defensive coordinator Willy Robinson.
The third-year coach [...]

Me Thinks Our Quarterback May Suffer from OCD

Arkansas fullback Van Stumon and offensive tackle Anthony Oden will be suspended Saturday for Arkansas’ opener against Tennessee Tech, Coach Bobby Petrino announced Wednesday.
Stumon and Oden were arrested on separated occassions and were charged with alcohol-related offenses. Both had gone through extra conditioning and one-on-one work after practices this preseason as punishment.
The suspensions will be [...]

Once again, we’re honored to be part of the prestigious SEC Power Poll, the grandaddy of all blogger-based football conference polls (or something like that). The official preseason poll deals with best/worst uniforms, and although we voted in that we don’t feel strongly enough about the teams’ fashion (except to rate Tennessee last) to repeat our thoughts in detail here. Instead, we’re going old school and will rank the teams from best to worst like usual.

All this is subject to change once the games start, of course, but here’s how things look to us now:

1. Alabama – Last year’s conference/national champs are the easy #1 pick until someone proves otherwise. (Say it with us: September 25th!)

2. Florida – It’s so stressful being Urban Meyer. He has to decide which new blue-chip players will replace the former blue-chip players who left after last season.

3. Georgia – As long as you’re not their former athletic director, things are looking up for the Bulldogs. That game in Athens is going to be tough.

4. Arkansas – We all know the strengths and weaknesses here. The Hogs are poised to make a quick jump up (or down) depending on how the first month goes.

5. Auburn – Malzahn has gone into his lab and cooked up a powerful offense to go along with the Tigers’ porous defense. Sound like any other team you know?

6. LSU – Plenty of talent, but a few tough losses and this will be the Hat’s last year on the bayou.

7. South Carolina – Look for these guys to be lower in November, of course. And they still haven’t been hit with the full fallout from the summer agent-related scandals.

8. Mississippi State – Dan Mullen & Co. are going to shock somebody this year…we just hope it’s not the Hogs.

9. Ole Miss – They were a lot higher on our list until Masoli was ruled ineligible. On the bright side for him, we hear Mississippi has an excellent Parks & Recreation graduate program, and he can probably get student tickets to the games.

10. Kentucky – Only a few more weeks until basketball season!

11. Tennessee – We really really really wish the Hogs played the Vols this year.

12. Vanderbilt – You guys might as well get comfortable down here in the basement.

Alabama will repeat as national champions but its running back, Mark Ingram, has some serious competition in the race for the Heisman Trophy, according to voters in WholeHogSports.com’s Best on the Beat poll.
On Monday we revealed how 12 SEC beat writers picked the SEC in the first part of the WholeHogSports.com poll, which featured Alabama [...]

Despite our well-deserved general image as beer-swilling, ass-kicking tough guys, we at Arkansas Expats, Inc are also sensitive types who are in touch with our feelings. So, when our corporate overlords at SB Nation introduced the “how are you feeling about your team” widget we thought it was a great idea.

In the upper left corner of the site (right under the logo), you’ll notice a little widget with a sliding scale that allows you to register your confidence level in the team (100 being fully, perhaps irrationally, confident).

The idea is that you can register your feelings about the Hogs throughout the season (I put mine down as 90, for what it’s worth) and the data will periodically be shared as a way of taking the fan base’s collective temperature. Should be interesting.

So, don’t forget to share your feelings as we go, and may the entire season remain as positive as possible. Feel the love!

After many months of wandering in the sports desert, the Arkansas Razorbacks 2010 football season begins in a mere FOUR DAYS. And, if that weren’t enough reason for excitement on its own, this year’s team could be the best Hog squad in a long, long time. An all-universe offense, an allegedly improved offense, a coaching staff that’s up to the task…what could go wrong?

As for that last question, well, this is Arkansas football we’re talking about. Events over the last 40 years or so have too often conspired to give Hog fans a bit more kinship with Charlie Brown trying to kick that ball from Lucy than I’d like to admit. Every time the pieces start to come together, something else happens to knock them apart again.

Personally, I feel like this really could be the year we kick the ball right out of Lucy’s hands. But, because this is a reality-based blog, we’re going to acknowledge that history could repeat itself once again.

So, if you’re not too squeamish, follow me after the jump for five things that are worrying me about this season:

(In order of least worrisome to most worrisome)

5. Ryan Mallett‘s foot. Generally anything Mallett-related should fall under the “causes for optimism” post that was so obvious Stephen and I decided not to write it. But, the fact remains that he was hobbled pretty much the entire offseason with that famously hurt foot, and he’s shown himself to be injury prone in the past. Given that football is a contact sport and all, and QBs tend to get knocked around from time to time, the chance certainly exists for bad things to happen to our Heisman candidate. As much as I have confidence in Bobby Petrino‘s QB-grooming ability, I think I speak for everyone when I say I’m not quite ready for the Tyler Wilson Era to begin just yet.

4. Running backs. Yes, the Hogs have four solid RBs and, yes, Petrino is famously a pass-first guy anyway. But, to win in the SEC you need to be able to grind out the tough yards, sustain long drives and generally give your defense a rest for as long as possible (more on that in a minute), and to do that you need guys who consistently run well. Our running game looked better on paper than it did on the field last year, and so far in this offseason that trend seems to be repeating – none of our runners have particularly distinguished themselves or separated from the pack. If we’re holding on to a 4-point lead late in the game against, say, Auburn and need to convert a 3rd and 2 to keep things going, can we get those yards?

3. The road. Fact #1: Hog fans rightfully have expectations of at least challenging for an SEC West title this year. Fact #2: We play half our conference games on the road. Fact #3: The Razorbacks have sucked on the road the last few years, winning exactly one away SEC game under Petrino. Fact #4: Since fact #2 isn’t changing, we’re going to have to change the fact #3 trend in order to deliver on fact #1. The road schedule is easier this year than last, but going to Georgia, Auburn, South Carolina and even Mississippi State will not be easy…can we grind out those wins?

2. The defense. Ripping the Hogs’ defense has become such a cliche among football prognositcators that there’s almost no way they’ll be as bad as advertised…in fact, I think they’ll surprise a few people this year. But, the fact remains that this is basically the same unit that allowed a bevy of painfully long TD plays. Until they prove that, say, they can tackle better than they did in last year’s Bama game, or stop a team’s final drive better than they did in the LSU game, the defense will be a cause for concern.

1. Special teams. Out of all the items on the list, this is the one that really worries me. The other four can largely be explained away, but absolutely nothing from the offseason has given me much confidence that our special teams will be better this year. So far our kickers and punters seem locked in a battle to *not* be the starter, and finding a punt returner hasn’t been easy either. Even factoring in improvements, our defense isn’t good enough to consistently defend a short field after poor punting and punt coverage. My guess is that we’ll lose at least one winnable game because of a special teams error this season.

If you’re not convinced, here’s a scenario: on a beautiful late September day in Fayetteville, the Razorbacks have battled Alabama for nearly four full quarters and are down 28-27 with seconds left on the clock. A final drive has stalled at the Tide’s 21 yard line, and out comes Alex Tejada for what should be a very makeable field goal. The biggest win in many, many years is only a 38 yard kick away. How confident do you feel?

What did we glean from Ryan Mallett’s appearance on ESPN’s “First Take” this morning? Well, he bathes four to five times a day and he can throw a football more than 80 yards.
I can not confirm that he can throw a football a quarter-mile or “over them mountains,” like Uncle Rico in “Napoleon Dynamite,” but [...]

Hey, it’s August and the football season is still a few days away but that doesn’t stop the prognosticators from, well, doing what they do.
The good folks at HeismanPundit.com, who most of you were following three years ago during Darren McFadden’s back-to-back runner-up finishes in the Heisman race, have released their preseason Heisman watch list. [...]

Hog fans who followed the football team in the 1980s no doubt have great memories of watching Tony Chercio, the undersized but tenacious noseguard who starred for Coach Ken Hatfield from 1984 to 1987. Cherico, who was an All-American in his senior season and a three-time member of the All-Southwest-Conference team, is now a defensive line coach for the legendary Barry Lunney Sr. at Bentonville High School in northwest Arkansas. In today’s fourth and final installment (here are the links for the preceding segments: part 1, part 2 and part 3), Tony discusses his funniest teammates, “Miami Vice” and the intense love football players have for soap operas.

Expats: We’re always kind of interested in looking behind the scenes. In your days, there, were there any players that stood out as the guys that always kept things loose in the locker room?

Cherico: Oh, yeah. We always had a class clown. Bobby Joe Edmonds, he was legendary for some of the things that he would come up with. First of all, he had his own language. He was a running back. Sometimes, he would come up with stuff that would just floor you.

The other one would be I think Ravin Caldwell. Ravin was funny. He was a great athlete. He was Fort Smith Northside. Heck, he ended up playing in the league five years. He has two Super Bowl rings to show for it. Great athlete but he was a clown. He kept everybody loose.

The whole defense – we were hard-nosed, but we were fun. We were close-knit group of kids.

Greg Thomas on the offense, and Derrick Thomas. They were funny. Derek always used to do imitations of the coaches. [Steve] Atwater and Sammy Van Dyke. It was funny – we always had somebody who could imitate a coach to a tee.

It kept it light. It kept it fun. The one thing that we really had going for us when we were playing under Coach Hatfield is that it was a family-type atmosphere. We knew we were there to play ball and to win but yet we kept everything in perspective. It was a game, and it was fun.

Expats: This is another behind-the-scenes kind of question. When you look back on your playing days, is there any particular song or music that whenever you hear it –

Cherico: Oh man, you’re going to make me date myself to the 80s! The one show – I was there for four different seasons, so we kind of went through the whole gamut. You had “Alf,” that was a comedy show that everybody watched.

The big one, Friday nights: “Miami Vice.” I never watched it but a lot of the players did. It was funny because “Miami Vice” was on from 9 to 10, and at 10 o’clock, we had our team meeting. There were many times that we had players showing up late because they’re watching their “Miami Vice.”

“Moonlighting” was another one. We watched that.

The funny thing was soap operas – you’d be amazed how many football players watched soap operas. We had guys that actually scheduled their classes around “All My Children.” They’d get in the locker room, and they were like a bunch of women talking about it. We’d be traveling on Fridays, and they’d be telling the story line, and they couldn’t wait until Monday to see what would happen.

But the music was bad. It was the 80s music. I remember the TV shows more than anything.

Expats: You’re a coach now and in the area. What are your thoughts on this year’s Razorbacks?

Cherico: Well, we’re going to score a whole lot of points. I can tell you that right now. I think what [Petrino’s] done is the same thing that Coach Hatfield did when he first got there: He came in there, and he demanded the best out of his players. And he’s going to get the best out of his players.

He’s getting his players into his system right now, which you can see. Offensively, they’re clicking on all cylinders right now. The thing is, if they can win on the road, they’re going to be a damn good team.

The part of the team that’s going to have to really step up is the defense. The SEC is so tough. There’s hardly ever a breather game. Especially when you go on the road.

The kids are believing in themselves, the defensive line. These kids have been there now three years, and they have a lot of experience. The secondary’s young but pretty athletic.

If they can stop some people, get those early wins, get the confidence rolling, there’s no telling how good they can be.

I see a lot in Coach Petrino. He has the kids believing in the system. You can just tell from the first time he had two-a-days until right now, these kids know what to expect. He’s getting so much more in. He’s not having to re-teach everything. All he’s doing right now is fine-tuning.

I’m looking forward to it. I really think that the schedule is set up for them to have a real successful year, if they can win on the road and win the big ones at home with Alabama and Ole Miss.

(This concludes our Q&A with Tony Cherico.Many thanks to Tony for his time and many thanks to commenter Eddie Van Hoglen for helping to set the interview up. Here are parts 1, 2 and 3.)

Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino spoke for about 30 minutes this afternoon at the first ever Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club luncheon. He hit on several items, most of which are generic things we’ve heard throughout camp. But here are a few tid-bits that caught my ear.
I’ll have video from the event later tonight.
— Petrino talked plenty, [...]

Below is a re-post of a piece I posted last year at this time. I couldn’t top it with a new one this year, so I thought I would just change a date and share the post again. As I reread it, I couldn’t help but think of the reporter who recently wore the wrong colors behind “enemy lines,” so-to-speak. That people actually called in death threats reminds us how people can sadly go from fan to fanatic. But the general thesis below is that college football is actually a good substitute for our tribal instincts, and I think that idea still stands as the vast, vast majority of us don’t issue death threats, just Hog calls.

To help kickoff the start of game week here at Arkansasexpats.com, here is a rather lenghty post that I’ve been working on during these long, hot, summer weeks of life without college football. Our wait, however, is nearly over. Come this time next week, we will have seen the 2010 Hogs take the field to begin this fall’s campaign. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy this look at the connections between the sport we love and the region that can claim to have its most passionate fans. Who knows, it might just be gameday by the time you get to the end of it!

       In a comment that I posted back when our blog here was still Razorbackexpats.com, I remarked that I looked forward to having a certain shark eyed, business like coach on our sideline after the years of watching the emotional Houston Nutt flop around like a just caught crappie. I wrote that I wanted to see a coach with a killer instinct, not one who bites his nails. I wanted a coach whose men would coldly and efficiently put teams away while he calmly gave orders and sucked on a lemon, just like Stonewall Jackson once did. What I wanted was someone who would say, “Kill them, kill them all,” in a matter of fact tone, just like Jackson at Fredericksburg, and mean it, so far as you can by the rules “kill” somone on a football field.

       Rather militaristic for someone who considers himself a left leaning humanist, but I think not all that out of place for a Southerner who loves with a passion his team and college football in general. By no means am I the first and only person to think of college football, the South, and the Civil War all at the same time. But as we near the start of another season in the SEC, I thought it would be worth the time, as there are still no scores yet to contemplate, to reflect again on how these strands are woven into the banners and flags we unfurl on gamedays during the fall.                                                                                  

      A gameday tradition that I can’t really claim is that of being a tailgater. I show up at the game in time to get my seat and then leave pretty much directly afterwards. I am sure many would say that I am missing out on a great part of the whole college football experience. I won’t argue with them. But I think you become a tailgater when you have friends and family to tailgate with, and I’ve never known either who were interested in and willing to put the time and effort into what passes as legitimate tailgating these days. Maybe I would if I did all the work and then invited them.

      But I have seen tailgating, and what I do think of nearly every time I walk through the golf course full of tailgaters at War Memorial or hear for the thousandth time how wonderful the Grove is at Ole Miss is the Battle of Manassas or Bull Run, if you want the Union name, which I actually think is the better of the two. I’ve never forgotten the description of how people in the Washington area in July of 1861 tried to make a picnic out of the thing as if they were going to, ah, a football game.

        It certainly wasn’t a football game. Over eight hundred young men were killed that day. To put that in perspective, more men were killed and wounded in a single day than will play in the SEC this year. I wonder what the dead of Manassas / Bull Run would say to the fact that today units from states (the Ohio boys versus the Florida boys), line up across from one another, try to outflank one another and conquer territory, penetrate lines, bomb away (See George Carlin’s famous routine for the complete list of miltary parallels) and just in general do battle with one another, so-to-speak, and then everyone walks home alive with just injured pride most often being the deepest wound. I wonder what they would say to that? I think they would applaud us and ask out loud why we as a species don’t settle all of our disputes that way. And what would the confederate dead say to the idea of young black men playing a sport along with whites? In truth, I suspect most of the dead from both sides would be surprised by that development.

       I would say to both – human progress. Tribal instincts are still very much at play in the world. Just look at Rwanda, Serbia, Iraq. In this great release valve known as college football, we put on our tribal colors, yell against other teams, brag about our own, and even dare to take Tim Tebow‘s name in vain, but that is usually as far as we let our tribal instincts take us.  Even LSU fans are not yet at the level of European soccer fans when it comes to taking things too far. Any young man, no matter race or background, can now play in the SEC as long as he can contribute. From the days of waving confederate flags and segregation to the hiring of Sylvester Croom and rosters based on talent and attitude, not skin color, we’ve moved in the right direction as a region.

       But we certainly haven’t forgotten the long ago war of our ancestors and the fact that it is the Southeastern Conference. No matter which SEC team you pull for, you are always happy to see a team from the South beat some Northern, some Yankee team. And you can think this way even at the same time you think your ancestors (for me, members of the25th and 28th Louisiana Infantry) were on the wrong side of morality and history. To some degree it goes both ways. BIG TEN teams enjoy coming down South during bowl season and scoring victories like it was 1864. I recall hearing about Ohio State fans bringing up their victory in the Civil War after they lost to LSU, or was it Florida? Possibly both. W-oh to the first SEC team to lose to Ohio State! But being on the losing side of the war, we Southerners certainly think about the regional divide more, and I think, enjoy our victories more as well when a Northern team falls to us. That descendants of slaves make up the majority of our teams’ rosters, that they are the ones we so often cheer for, well, you do get another layer of ironic complexity to mull over.

       Winning is so important to us that we now say it doesn’t matter where you come from as long as you can general, that is coach, your way to victories in the SEC. Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Les Miles, these coaches didn’t grow up speaking with a Southern drawl. Just as the desire to win helped overcome racial prejudice in regard to African American players, that same desire has resulted in the firing of old line Southern coaches like Phil Fulmer for whatever Lane Kiffin is. I am not ready to call this unabashed progress, however, for I think we Southerners have always enjoyed rooting for our home grown coaches, but am I going to insist that a still promising Bobby Petrino cultivate a Southern accent or hit the road? Not a chance!

        If you go looking for more direct connections to the Civil War than of the analogy variety and deeper connections to the South than what most of our current crop of field generals can claim, you can certainly begin with Ole Miss and its legacy of the University Grays, a Confederate unit made up of Ole Miss students. Colonel Reb still lives in memory at Oxford, even if he isn’t officially sanctioned by the university. LSU’s connection to the Civil War comes in the form of having their mascot named from two Louisiana brigades that fought so fiercely they became known as the “Louisiana Tigers.” Though not founded until after the war and with no direct mascot connection, the University of Arkansas does run out on the field the state flag with its confederate stars and bars turned into a diamond. Georgia, oddly enough, plays the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic during games with”Glory, Glory.”

       Walk around the campus at Tuscaloosa and you’ll see the buildings that survived Sherman’s burning of the school. The gray masks on the Tide’s helmets are a tribute to the university’s time as a military school during the Civil War. “Volunteers” refers to all Tennesseans who have volunteered for military service through the years, including Civil War volunteers. The campus itself in Knoxville was damaged during the war and served as both barracks and hospital to soldiers. Ask an Auburn graduate and he will tell you that “War Eagle!” comes from a legend about an injured eagle owned by a Civil War veteran who found it on a battlefield and brought it to a football game in 1892 against George where it miraculously flew for the first time.

        Vanderbilt plays in Nashville, a city full of Civil War ghosts from some of the worse fighting of the war at the Battle of Nashville and nearby Franklin. The university itself was founded with Northern money towards the idea of healing the wounds and bitterness brought about by the war. The SEC as a whole functions as a confederacy of sorts. We fight amongst one another and resent one another, just as the original confederate states did amongst themselves, but more often than not we will pull for one another when facing an outsider to where chants of “SEC! SEC!” have replaced the old slogan of ”The South Will Rise Again” as a testament of regional pride.

         At the end of Ken Burns’ documentary, “The Civil War,” Shelby Foote reads from a memoir of a Civil War veteran, Barry Benson, on how he wished they would all someday meet in Vahalla, reconstitute their camps, wake up to taps, sound the war drums, battle one another, and then wake up afterwards all ready to do it again, refreshed and renewed. I think what Barry Benson was unknowingly describing was a college football season!

        November the 6th 1869 saw the first college football game played, which was between two Northern schools, Rutgers and what would later be named Princeton. Here in 2010 we get ready to start the 141st year of the sport. Though we in the South can’t claim to be the birthplace of college football, we have added much to its long history, have entwined it with our own history, and have embraced it like no other region. If there is ever a last college football game played, I will put my money on it being played below the Mason-Dixon line.

The first ever luncheon for the Northwest Arkansas Touchdown Club will kick off game week today.
The first speaker for the newly-created club? Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino, of course. The luncheon will begin at 11 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Convention Center in Springdale and Petrino will speak at noon.
Lunch will cost non-members $25 at the [...]

You’ve seen the polls, the picks, the prognostications and you’ve heard the banter. There are plenty of opinions out there about how the Southeastern Conference will shake out this season.
You’ve heard from the coaches in their poll. You’ve even heard from the media in their poll.
But what we’re doing here on WholeHogSports.com is a little [...]